Switch
by EmeraldCelebi
Summary: Naturally, Dojo at work and Dojo alone with Iku are two distinct sides of the same coin; sometimes, it's even as unmistakable as black from white, like hitting a light switch.


It's hard for Iku to think past the sensation of Dojo's lips moving excitedly against hers, his hands running up and down her sides as if in question, his warm weight pressing her back into the bed's headboard. If his hands are asking for permission to move further, she doesn't have the spare attention to grant it; feeling is demanding her attention, and thinking has totally lost it's appeal. She pulls back to breathe, sighing out his name in a soft prayer since it's the only remaining coherent thought when he leans in to kiss at her neck. She grabs at the back of his shirt for grounding and focuses on not letting her voice escape with her stuttering breath- so a thought does emerge, after all, amidst her mental incantation. _Don't be weird. Don't mess this up. Don't be weird._ Instead of moaning, she slurs his name over and over with every exhale. It's hardly audible or intelligible, but a decent alternative to making a noise she'll be mortified by and shoot the mood straight to hell. Or so she figures the situation will go.

Until Dojo picks up on her hesitation. He leans back a little, detaching his mouth from her neck (she sighs at the loss of contact, the sound sparking heat through his body, but he ignores this in favor of the matter at hand) and meeting her dilated eyes with his, brow furrowed in concern.

"Are you okay?" Iku blinks at him for a moment, letting the haze of arousal clear from her brain long enough to give her back the power of thought. She tries to speak, clears her throat, and tries again.

".. F, fine. I'm fine," she replies, finally starting to wonder why he stopped. He doesn't look convinced.

"... You know," he starts again, "you don't have to hold back. I'm not going to make fun of you or think it's weird." He stops for a second, a conflicted look on his face. "I just want you to be 100% comfortable with this." It's Iku's turn to furrow her brow and look unconvinced. His voice is still low and gravelly, which certainly doesn't help with concentration when she can still feel the ghost of his lips and tongue along the tingling skin of her neck. It takes her an extra moment to come to the conclusion that his concern is rooted in her efforts to suppress the noises she would ordinarily make in similar situations. Since they had started taking things a little further than just kissing, she was growing more anxious that getting too carried away would be a turn-off, so to speak. The worst part was, she couldn't tell whether or not her nervousness was a result of her mother's conservative views on sex which she had recently considered herself free of.

"...How rude. I am comfortable," she insists, but there's no fire in it. She has to look away; his gaze is too sincere and too hot. "I'm just… a little…" she holds her thumb and forefinger an inch apart, not looking back to check if he sees it. "...embarrassed."

He sits back onto his knees, pulling his arms back from where they were braced on either side of her, putting a pocket of space between them. She feels a little colder now. "Embarrassed? Iku, you have to trust me." That voice, she knows, is his lecture-mode voice, and sure enough, Dojo launches into a tirade about trust in relationships. She's heard him talk about trust before, and she honestly doesn't mean to so expertly tune him out, but it happens anyway when her thoughts get distracted by a different revelation.

The realization hits her, as he begins his lecture, that she's somehow accidentally hit a switch. Naturally, Dojo at work and Dojo alone with her are two distinct sides of the same coin, and watching his stern face now is something clearly businesslike. His brow is still furrowed in worry, but affectionate (excited?) Dojo exited at the last stop.

Too late, she realizes he's done talking. A curse word alarms through her head and almost makes it to her lips as she nods her head intently, bringing her eyes to his. As expected, they're no longer dilated.

"...You weren't listening to me at all just now," he says flatly, and it's not a question. She wants to play it off and get back to what they were doing before, to pull him back in and run her fingers through his spiked hair and kiss him until his voice is unstable again, but shame spikes in her gut and holds her immobile. He heaves a sigh, looking genuinely disappointed. She frowns. This situation is getting too complicated. Five minutes ago, she was barely heartbeats away from… well, now, he was giving her a look not unlike the one he'd given her in that coffee shop when she'd compared him to "her prince" all those years ago. Just, this time, more disappointed than hurt.

This situation, she decides, cannot be salvaged by banter, or by pretending it didn't happen. She regrets hitting the switch.

The remorse lasts for a few weeks, filled with Iku apologizing and crying and feeling like the worst girlfriend in the world, but Dojo reassures her every time that it's really not that big of a deal. Their relationship doesn't suffer any strain because Dojo really is too kind, too kind. They sit down and talk it through in earnest, with Iku promising not to hold back or worry about what Dojo will think when they're caught up in the heat of the moment, and she listens carefully this time to every word he says, especially the ones about trust.

In the present, Dojo is working overtime, and unapologetically drags Iku with him. She sighs, long and loud, into the stack of books in front of her as the last few remaining task force members file out of the room to go home. "Work hard, you two!" Komaki calls sympathetically before sliding the door shut, trapping them in a paperwork prison for another hour, at least, knowing Dojo. So she picks up her head and gets down to business, positive that he would have no qualms about making her stay until she finished working.

And so, it only takes about half an hour of Iku working diligently to complete her extra tasks, and she leans back to stretch, proud of herself. She casts her eyes across the room to Dojo's desk, where his head is still bent and pen still scratching away like a restless cat on a scratching post. She puts her chin in her hand and considers her options.

Announce that she's done and go home. She doesn't want to leave him here all alone, so she scraps this idea.

Offer to help. By her calculations, there's a 90% chance he'll say "no thanks, just go on home if you're done" and that will be that.

Wait patiently until he's done. Contrary to what her coworkers would assume by her active nature, Iku _does_ have the capacity for patience. She simply doesn't feel like being patient right at the moment.

Distract him.

Iku almost never makes the first move on Dojo. Part of it is because he is her superior officer, and she has an ingrained respect for his space and practice assuming anything she does can or might be annoying to him. Not that this generally stops her in matters of anything except flirtation. The other part is because she knows, begrudgingly, that every quip Shibasaki has ever made about her virginal disposition is completely and utterly true, even if she's no longer technically "a virgin". She knows herself well enough by now to be sure that if she thinks too hard about it, she'll get uncomfortable and awkward. That's why she doesn't think too hard about it when she gets up and strolls casually over to where Dojo sits, stopping behind him.

Dojo is so engrossed in his work that it doesn't register with him that she got up until he feels her hands massaging his shoulders. He sits up immediately, pen dropping to a halt, and gives a raised-eyebrow look to his girlfriend over his shoulder. She leans down and presses a kiss to his temple.

"I'm finished," she assures him before he can snap at her to get back to work, "so I think you should be too." She sees his lips purse, hears the audible exhale through his nose as he turns back toward his desk.

"I don't have much left," he replies. Clearly, this is going to take some convincing. Iku ignores the blush beginning to rise up across her skin as she leans down again to press her lips to his cheek, diplomatically opting for an ostensibly innocent route so he won't pull away and yell at her. Slowly, she works downward, trailing kisses down to where his jaw meets his neck. The man is like stone, all stiff and unmoving and unconvinced, trying to decide the nicest way to get his girlfriend's enthralling mouth off of his face long enough to get his work done. Undeterred, Iku changes tack.

She initially planned for this to be her last resort, because she honestly believes it crosses a threshold. At the very least, it's a world of difference from innocently kissing his face, but through her humiliation and anxiety shines a strong curiosity to know if it will actually work, and this curiosity takes priority. Slowly, cautiously, she moves her mouth to his ear and gently, very gently, closes her teeth around the outer edge.

Dojo whips his head to the side to face her, pulling his ear out of range. _Uh-oh. Now I've done it_. She stares back at him, an apology on her tongue before her brain registers the expression on his face. Instead of angry or annoyed, it's a little shocked, and… heated. She barely has time to recognize the desire in his darkening face before he yanks her forward and kisses her hard.

 _So, there's the switch._

She smiles against his mouth, feeling successful and exultant momentarily before whatever she was thinking dissolves at the feeling of his tongue against her lips, asking to be let in. He pulls back, both of them breathing hard for a beat then readjusting in one fluid motion. He swivels his chair to face her and she ends up straddling his lap, one strong arm holding her to him around the small of her back and the other hand reaching up into her hair to desperately pull her face back down. This time, she allows the notes of surprise and want to escape from her throat, and through her addled daze she thinks it riles him up even more. His tongue delves into her mouth, and she instinctively snakes her arms around his neck and tries to pull her body closer. When his teeth clamp lightly on her bottom lip, she thinks vaguely that she might overheat. Her whole body is trembling with excitement, and her self-control is slipping fast. His fingers in her hair, his body yielding against hers, his lips and tongue moving deliciously and urgently, rendering her unable to stop the flow of soft moans that seem to raise themselves straight from her diaphragm; it's almost too much, she has to move, she has to-

The discomfort of their position urges to be noticed: Dojo's chair was not created with the size or weight of two people in mind. A unanimous sigh is raised as they pull away, hot breath tangling between them. Dojo's breathing is just as ragged as Iku's, his face flushed and lips kiss-swollen, and Iku almost moans again at the bedraggled sight of her very-obviously-aroused-and-not-trying-to-hide-it boyfriend. His arms untangle from around her and his hands land on her hips, pushing her off gently and carefully into a standing position. She sways on her feet a little, gripping his shoulders automatically. He huffs out a laugh as she tries to steady herself, and the low noise sends a wave of heat through her body such that she forgets to be indignant about him laughing at her in the first place. Once she's balanced, he stands up with her, hands still firmly on her hips.

"Let's go home." The unspoken promise in his husky voice and molten eyes makes Iku bite her lip and modestly look away, but she nods.

As he turns away to tidy up and prepare to leave, Iku's mind catches up to the events of the past few minutes. Her whole body is still radiating heat, but she's calmed down enough to mentally catalogue her triumph in persuading Dojo to turn away from his work. She allows herself the stipulation that such a tactic won't work every time, but still.

 _It's a good thing to keep in mind._ She grins to herself and presses her fingers to her electrified lips, letting Dojo take her other hand and lead her out of the room.


End file.
